A River of Roses
by Alphonso Rentorrier
Summary: A one-shot story. After she gets separated from the Doctor on a space station, Rose gets some help from a mysterious woman from the Doctor's past. Or is it his future? "Spoilers!"


As the TARDIS finished materialising, the Doctor turned to Rose and said, "You ready for the best ice skating experience of your life?"

Rose displayed her snow-white winter apparel, turning around to model for her Time Lord friend. In her one hand, she held a pair of ice skates by the laces.

"All set." She gave a confused look to the Doctor. "Aren't you going to change?"

The Doctor glanced down at his leather jacket and olive green V-neck jumper. He furrowed his brow at Rose. "What's wrong with this?"

Rose shrugged. "Nothing. It just doesn't seem appropriate for the ice lakes of Arctos 7."

"I'll have you know, this outfit is considerably warmer than it looks."

"Alright, alright, Mister Fashion."

She chuckled, and the Doctor joined her in the laugh. He walked towards the TARDIS's door and opened it.

The two travellers stepped out of the time machine and into a shining silver hallway, where they were immediately met with guns pointed in their faces.

"Halt," a low, metallic voice said. "Drop your weapons."

The Doctor and Rose froze. In front of them were about ten identical robots, each one boxy and made of some sort of white metal, making them look like walking refrigerators. They each had one left hand that ended in a claw, and a right one that ended in a cannon. About ten cannons pointed at the Doctor and Rose.

Slowly, Rose lowered her ice skates onto the ground, never taking her eyes off of the robots.

"Doctor," she said. "This doesn't look like an ice lake."

"No, it does not," the Doctor replied. To the robots, he said, "Terribly sorry for intruding, but we seemed to have taken a wrong turn on the way to our destination. So would you mind telling us how to get to Arctos 7?"

"This space station currently orbits the planet you speak of," one of the robots explained.

"Oh." The Doctor turned to Rose. "Well, I was close."

"No you weren't," Rose said.

"Kinda close."

"Identify yourselves," the lead robot ordered.

"Well, I'm the Doctor, and this is Rose Tyler," the Doctor said.

Rose waved a shaky hand. "Hello."

"The Doctor and Rose Tyler," the lead robot repeated. "You are trespassers on the Arctos 7 Orbital Defense Satellite, and you will be incinerated."

"Oh?" The Doctor cocked an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"Concealed weapons have been detected on the person of the Doctor," another robot stated.

"Reveal all hidden weapons," the lead robot said. "Now."

"If you insist." The Doctor reached into the inside of his jacket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver.

He held the device up and held down the button, sending a shrill buzzing noise through the room. The robots started convulsing, as if the sonic screwdriver were hurting them.

The Doctor grabbed Rose's hand and said, "Run!"

With the robots distracted, the time travellers rushed past them and down the hall. They turned down a side hallway and ran for a little longer, before they were stopped by a closed door.

"Doctor, why can't we just get away in the TARDIS?" Rose asked.

"There's too many guns," the Doctor explained. "She won't take off until we've eliminated the threat. Now stand back, Rose. I'm going to try something."

Rose took a few steps back as the Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver at a panel beside the door. He activated the device, holding down on the button hard.

The panel sparked, and suddenly, a wall descended from the ceiling, cutting off Rose from the Doctor.

Startled, she pounded on the wall. "Doctor!" she called. "Doctor!"

"Rose, I'm here!" the Doctor said, pounding back. "Hold on!"

Rose heard the muffled sound of the sonic screwdriver for a few moments.

"Blast! It's deadlocked!" the Doctor said. "Rose, just hang tight! I'll come back for you! I promise!"

She heard sounds of heavy metallic footsteps approaching. "Doctor, the robots are coming this way!"

"Hide, Rose!"

She looked to her sides and found a small side hallway to her left. She escaped down it and kept running until the robot footsteps faded away.

She leaned against a cold metal wall and breathed. The Doctor was gone, she thought. Lost inside the station. But he said he'd return for her…at least, she hoped he would.

Rose looked at her surroundings. As redundant as the thought was, it all looked so alien, and she had no idea how far from the Doctor she had run.

Without any indication of approaching robots, she cautiously crept down the hallway. There was a closed door a considerably distance down, and she marked it as her next destination.

The hallway was silent, eerily silent. It gave Rose the creeps, but she supposed that the lack of sound was a good thing in this case.

"Look out!"

Something hit her from behind and tackled her to the ground. The wind was knocked from Rose's body as she heard a laser blasting dangerously close to her position. She looked up just in time to see her savior shoot at something on the ceiling, exploding it into sparks.

"Whew! That almost turned ugly. Sorry about that, dear. Some of these security cameras are a bit nasty, what with their disintegration beams and all."

Rose and the other person got up, and her savior turned to face her. She was a human-looking woman with a wild mane of sandy blonde hair, dressed in a silver catsuit. In her one hand, she held a bulky, smoking gun, looking like something straight out of a science fiction movie.

"Now, I haven't known humans to visit these parts of the universe often," the woman said. "So the real question is: How did _you_ get here?"

The woman punctuated her question by pointing her gun at Rose, which caused the girl to jump and instinctively raise her hands.

"I'm travelling with a man called the Doctor," Rose spat out.

The woman's eyes widened at the mention of the Doctor's name, and she lowered the gun slightly.

"The Doctor?" she asked. "What's your name, dear?"

"Rose. Rose Tyler."

The woman let her gun arm drop to her side and stared at Rose as if she were a ghost.

"Oh my god," the woman said. "It's you."

"Sorry, have we met?" Rose asked.

The woman snapped out of her trance. "No, sorry. Spoilers. Shouldn't have said anything."

"Do you know the Doctor?"

The woman paused before answering. "We have a…history. Tell me, what does the Doctor look like?"

Rose found this an odd request, but she obeyed. "Big ears, nose, always wears that—"

"—leather jacket that makes him look like he's in a biker gang?" the woman finished.

Rose nodded her head.

"So he's _that_ one now," the woman said. "Well come along, dear. I'll get you back to the Doctor."

The woman walked past Rose down the hall, and Rose followed her.

"Who are you exactly?" Rose asked.

The woman didn't say anything for a few moments, but she eventually responded with, "Call me Mrs. Robinson."

"You said humans don't come out here that often," Rose said. "So what are you doing here?"

"I'm not entirely human, dear." Mrs. Robinson winked at her. "And I happened to be snooping around this base and got captured."

"You sound like the Doctor."

Mrs. Robinson chuckled. "We've got more than a few similarities."

The two approached the door, and Mrs. Robinson reached into an unseen pocket and pulled out a small metallic card. She waved it in front of the panel beside the door, and it slid open.

She noticed Rose's confused look, and she explained, "Keycard. I swiped it from one of the Arcbots when I escaped capture."

Rose nodded in understanding, and the two continued down the new hallway. They walked towards a T, but then stopped when they heard approaching Arcbots. Mrs. Robinson threw both of them against the wall, and she covered Rose's mouth with her hand.

A pair of Arcbots passed right by them, and a trickle of sweat rolled down Rose's face. The robots passed and Mrs. Robinson took her hand from Rose's face and looked down the hall towards the departing robots. She motioned for Rose to follow her, and the two walked in the opposite direction as the Arcbots.

"So how are you going to get me back to the Doctor?" Rose asked in a hushed voice. "This place seems like a maze."

"It is," Mrs. Robinson answered. "But the Arcbots have something very valuable of mine in storage. Once I get it back, I'll be able to send you to the Doctor."

The two women continued in silence. Mrs. Robinson had her gun drawn and looked ready to shoot at anything that came in their way. Anytime they came across a locked door, Mrs. Robinson waved her keycard, and the door opened for them. It was almost as useful as the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, Rose remarked.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence, Rose finally asked a question that was burning up inside of her since she met Mrs. Robinson.

"So if we've never met, how come you've heard of me?"

Mrs. Robinson sighed. "Spoilers."

"Has the Doctor talked about me?"

"Spoilers."

Rose stopped walking. "No. I want a straight answer out of you. And I'm not going to move until you give me one."

Mrs. Robinson groaned and turned back to Rose. She put a hand on her shoulder.

"Yes, he talks about you. He talks about you all the time."

"Good things?" Rose asked.

Mrs. Robinson smiled. "Wonderful things."

Butterflies erupted in Rose's stomach.

"But I actually can't say anything more on the subject," Mrs. Robinson said. "So can we continue?"

Rose nodded. "Lead the way, Mrs. Robinson."

The two continued down their path, walking a few more yards before turning down another hallway.

Right in front of two Arcbots.

"Halt," one of them ordered. The robots aimed their gun-arms at the women.

"Oh no," Mrs. Robinson said, cocking her gun.

All the robots had time to say was "Prisoner R—" before Mrs. Robinson shot both of them in the chest. The robots collapsed to the ground, dead, with sparking holes in their refrigerator hides.

"Well, so much for being stealthy," Mrs. Robinson said. "Half the Arcbots on this station probably heard that."

She grabbed Rose's hand and ran down the hall. "Come on, dear," she said.

The two raced through the silver halls, but surprisingly, they didn't run into any more Arcbots.

Eventually, they approached a large door along the side of a hallway. Mrs. Robinson pulled out the keycard and faced the door.

"Here it is: Storage. Now stand back, Rose. There's gonna be about two dozen Arcbots in there, all heavily armed. I'll take care of them, just you stay out of harm's way."

Rose stood to the side of the door and pressed herself against the wall.

Mrs. Robinson took a deep breath and swiped the keycard. The door slid open, and she readied herself to fire her gun.

But she didn't shoot anything as she relaxed her stance. "Oh. It's all clear, dear."

Rose walked over to her side and peered into the room. There were indeed two dozen Arcbots inside, but they were all lying on the ground, not moving.

"What happened?" Rose asked.

"All the Arcbots on this station are powered by a remote battery somewhere deep in the satellite's core," Mrs. Robinson explained. "Looks like someone already shut it down."

The two women looked at each other.

"The Doctor," they said in unison.

"Gotta hand it to him," Mrs. Robinson said. "As good as he is at getting into trouble, he's just as good at getting me out of it."

Mrs. Robinson walked into the room. The walls were lined with hundreds of white, tube-like objects of various sizes. She stepped over a few Arcbot bodies and went to one of the tubes, unscrewed the lid, and looked into it.

"Nope," she said.

She moved onto another tube and did the same.

"Cute, but not mine."

As Mrs. Robinson went from tube to tube, Rose looked around the room. The colorless lights reflected off of the walls, making the room seem spotless and sterile. The Arcbots were spread across the floor in stiff, unconscious positions, like broken appliances. In the corner of the room, an eyeball-like device swiveled around to stare at Mrs. Robinson.

Then Rose remembered what Mrs. Robinson said about the security cameras, and her heart skipped a beat.

"Look out!" she cried. She leapt towards Mrs. Robinson, grabbed her and pulling her onto the ground and to the side.

The security camera fired, narrowly missing the two women and disintegrating a few small tubes.

Mrs. Robinson immediately rolled over and fired her gun at the camera. It exploded in a shower of sparks and scrap metal.

"Well, I guess we can consider that debt paid." She turned back to Rose with a smile. "Thanks."

Mrs. Robinson and Rose stood up, and the older woman turned to where the disintegrated tubes once stood.

"Well, let's hope my thing wasn't in one of those," Mrs. Robinson said.

She walked over to another small tube and looked inside of it.

"Oop, nevermind! We're good."

She pulled out a small device and held it in her hands. It looked strangely familiar to Rose.

Mrs. Robinson clicked a button on the device, and the tip lit up blue and emitted a shrill, buzzing noise. She clicked something else, and the tip lit up red and made a higher-pitched sound.

"Yep, still works," Mrs. Robinson said. "Awesome."

"Is that a…sonic screwdriver?" Rose asked.

Mrs. Robinson turned to her. "What? No. It's a…trans-temporal…wrench."

Rose knew she was lying, but she didn't quite know why. "What?" she asked.

"Please don't tell the Doctor about this," Mrs. Robinson said, her eyes pleading. "Spoilers."

Rose slowly nodded her head. "Okay. So now that you have it, how are you going to send me back to the Doctor?"

"Well, it's synced up to the Doctor's sonic screwdriver," Mrs. Robinson explained. "So when combined with my vortex manipulator, it'll send you right to him."

She holstered her gun and reached for her wrist, and it was now that Rose realised that she was wearing a leather bound wrist-mounted device.

She took it off and handed it to Rose. "Here. Put this on."

Rose strapped the device onto her wrist. "Well thanks for all of this, Mrs. Robinson."

"No problem, dear," Mrs. Robinson replied. "And when you see the Doctor, tell him I…"

Her voice trailed off, and she stared at the floor. Rose noticed that her eyes were sad, as if she were reliving a painful memory.

She looked back at Rose. "Tell him I'll see him soon."

She raised the sonic screwdriver to Rose and activated it. The device on Rose's wrist tingled, and her entire world exploded in bright light, blinding her.

When the light faded and the tingling stopped, Rose noticed that she was back in one of the station's several hallways.

"Rose?"

She turned as she heard a familiar Northern-accented voice. The Doctor stood there, staring at her.

"Where did you come from?" he asked. "I was just coming to find you."

Before Rose had any time to answer, the Doctor went to her wrist and looked at the device there. "A vortex manipulator? Where'd you get this?"

"There was a woman," Rose said. "She helped me get back to you. She said she knew you. Said her name was 'Mrs. Robinson.'"

The Doctor furrowed his brow. "I don't know anyone by that name."

"She told me to tell you that she'd see you soon," Rose said.

"Probably someone from my future that I haven't met yet," the Doctor said. "Please, don't tell me anything else that could affect the timeline."

"I couldn't if I wanted to," Rose said. "She was very persistent about not revealing information."

"Hmmm." The Doctor pursed his lips in thought, and then shrugged. "Well anyway, come along. I've shut down the robots' remote power source, so the TARDIS should be able to take off now. Hopefully the ice lakes haven't thawed by now."

The Doctor walked down the hall, and Rose followed him. The entire way, the words of Mrs. Robinson echoed through her mind, causing her to smile.

 _"_ _Yes, he talks about you. He talks about you all the time. Wonderful things."_


End file.
